If: a play in four acts eBook

MIRALDA

JOHN

Why, I’d tell him a bit about the law, and
make him see that you didn’t keep all that money
that belonged to someone else.

MIRALDA

Would you really?

JOHN

Nothing would please me better.

MIRALDA

Would you really? Would you go all that way?

JOHN

It’s just the sort of thing that I should like,
apart from the crying shame. The man ought to
be . . .

MIRALDA

We’re getting into Holborn. Would you
come and lunch somewhere with me and talk it over?

JOHN

Gladly. I’d be glad to help. I’ve
got to see a man on business first. I’ve
come up to see him. And then after that, after
that there was something I wanted to do after that.
I can’t think what it was. But something
I wanted to do after that. O, heavens, what
was it?

[Pause.]

MIRALDA

Can’t you think?

JOHN

No. O, well, it can’t have been so very
important. And yet . . . Well, where shall
we lunch?

MIRALDA

Gratzenheim’s.

JOHN

Right. What time?

MIRALDA

One-thirty. Would that suit?

JOHN

Perfectly. I’d like to get a man like
Hussein in prison. I’d like . . . O,
I beg your pardon.

[He hurries to open the door. Exit Miralda.]

Now what was it I wanted to do afterwards?

[Throws hand to forehead.] O, never mind.

Curtain

ACT II

SCENE

JOHN’s tent in Al Shaldomir. There are
two heaps of idols, left and right, lying upon the
ground inside the tent. Daoud carries another
idol in his arms. John looks at its face.

Six months have elapsed since the scene in the second-class
railway carriage.

JOHN BEAL

This god is holy.

[He points to the left heap. Daoud carries
it there and lays it on the heap.]